PIZAZZ
07-03-2012, 07:28 PM
I have been working with a solution that is bound to make things easier for the TriCaster based broadcaster wanting more advanced graphics.
Frustrated with having to buy a Daktronics AllSport CG but end up at a school with a Fairplay board instead? or vice versa?
This new solution is system agnostic. You can use the box with practically any scoreboard out there (excluding the manually drawn kind). We have used it for quite a few games in our production division. Other great thing is you can easily transition from basketball to baseball to tennis to football. All with one box.
So you get the box, the ScoreBot, you plug it into one of the scoreboard controller outputs with the appropriate cable. We made one cable for Daktronics and one for Fairplay. Both cables are TRS 1/4" to RS232 DB9pin but the pin out is different for Daktronics or Fairplay.
After plugging into the scoreboard controller, you plug the ScoreBot into an available internet connection. The box will pull a ip address from a DHCP server on the lan and begin transmitting to the Scorebot Server.
Next you fire up their product LiveXML which then talks to the ScoreBot Server and translates the ScoreBot information into XML that LiveText can read.
This is what LiveXML looks like:
ScoreBotScreenGrab.PNG (http://www.pizazz.com/pizazzfiles/ScoreBotScreenGrab.PNG)
Now in LiveText you will find quite a few new options for you to pull information from. Select the Text tool then Right click on the interface and add in any of the available variables such as:
LiveTextScoreBotKeys.jpg (http://www.pizazz.com/pizazzfiles/LiveTextScoreBotKeys.jpg)
When you have the Keys you want to use and their values are auto updating you will breath a huge sigh of relief and definitely crack a smile. No more manually inputing the score or down information. You now will have a automatically updating CLOCK. No more manually stop and start and best thing is no more PIP windows depending on a camera to stay in just the right position.
There is a cool remap feature that is perfect for those occasions you need to automate timeouts or runners on base too. You can take any value and assign it another value.
We used this in Baseball. Scenario is Runner is on 1st. The key received from the ScoreBot of <OnFirst> is 1. A value of nothing from the scoreboard controller you see nothing onscreen. When a value of 1 is received from the scoreboard, the remap pulls a Diamond from the WingDings font group. Now I have a diamond on my graphic representing the base the runner is on. If the runner steals to 2nd base, the scoreboard updates that and my graphic updates to show a runner on 2nd base because <OnFirst> is now nothing and <OnSecond> is 1.
Once you get your head around this, you can make some amazing things happen.
So next question I am sure you will come up with is... What if there is no internet? or the internet is blocked by the IT Nazi's? Simple solution, plug the ScoreBot into the Scoreboard Controller of course and then into a Cradlepoint router with a 3G card in it. $50 for a Cradlepoint and the internet problem is solved completely wirelessly without having to fight IT.
Yes this really works. The latency was so minimal the only way I could measure it was with a camera. We have never so easily been able to keep up with a scoreboard manually.
Contact me if you need more information.
Frustrated with having to buy a Daktronics AllSport CG but end up at a school with a Fairplay board instead? or vice versa?
This new solution is system agnostic. You can use the box with practically any scoreboard out there (excluding the manually drawn kind). We have used it for quite a few games in our production division. Other great thing is you can easily transition from basketball to baseball to tennis to football. All with one box.
So you get the box, the ScoreBot, you plug it into one of the scoreboard controller outputs with the appropriate cable. We made one cable for Daktronics and one for Fairplay. Both cables are TRS 1/4" to RS232 DB9pin but the pin out is different for Daktronics or Fairplay.
After plugging into the scoreboard controller, you plug the ScoreBot into an available internet connection. The box will pull a ip address from a DHCP server on the lan and begin transmitting to the Scorebot Server.
Next you fire up their product LiveXML which then talks to the ScoreBot Server and translates the ScoreBot information into XML that LiveText can read.
This is what LiveXML looks like:
ScoreBotScreenGrab.PNG (http://www.pizazz.com/pizazzfiles/ScoreBotScreenGrab.PNG)
Now in LiveText you will find quite a few new options for you to pull information from. Select the Text tool then Right click on the interface and add in any of the available variables such as:
LiveTextScoreBotKeys.jpg (http://www.pizazz.com/pizazzfiles/LiveTextScoreBotKeys.jpg)
When you have the Keys you want to use and their values are auto updating you will breath a huge sigh of relief and definitely crack a smile. No more manually inputing the score or down information. You now will have a automatically updating CLOCK. No more manually stop and start and best thing is no more PIP windows depending on a camera to stay in just the right position.
There is a cool remap feature that is perfect for those occasions you need to automate timeouts or runners on base too. You can take any value and assign it another value.
We used this in Baseball. Scenario is Runner is on 1st. The key received from the ScoreBot of <OnFirst> is 1. A value of nothing from the scoreboard controller you see nothing onscreen. When a value of 1 is received from the scoreboard, the remap pulls a Diamond from the WingDings font group. Now I have a diamond on my graphic representing the base the runner is on. If the runner steals to 2nd base, the scoreboard updates that and my graphic updates to show a runner on 2nd base because <OnFirst> is now nothing and <OnSecond> is 1.
Once you get your head around this, you can make some amazing things happen.
So next question I am sure you will come up with is... What if there is no internet? or the internet is blocked by the IT Nazi's? Simple solution, plug the ScoreBot into the Scoreboard Controller of course and then into a Cradlepoint router with a 3G card in it. $50 for a Cradlepoint and the internet problem is solved completely wirelessly without having to fight IT.
Yes this really works. The latency was so minimal the only way I could measure it was with a camera. We have never so easily been able to keep up with a scoreboard manually.
Contact me if you need more information.